`SUPERMAN' RETURNS HAVE WARNER BROS. STUDIO FLYING HIGH FILM EARNS $84 MILLION IN FIRST 5 DAYS.

Byline: GREG HERNANDEZ Staff Writer

``Superman Returns'' gave Warner Bros. its biggest five-day opening in studio history, taking in $84 million since flying into theaters Wednesday, according to box office estimates released Sunday.

The first live-action film featuring the Man of Steel in nearly 20 years landed atop the weekend box office chart with three-day ticket sales of $52 million, followed by the unexpectedly strong debut of the Meryl Streep comedy ``The Devil Wears Prada,'' which took in an estimated $27 million.

``Superman,'' starring Brandon Routh and directed by Bryan Singer, eclipsed the $83.7 million five-day mark set by Warner's ``Matrix Revolutions'' in 2003. While the five-day numbers were far below those of fellow superhero ``Spider-Man 2'' in 2004 ($152.4 million), they were slightly better than those of last year's ``Batman Begins'' ($72.8 million).

``Superman'' is poised to cross the $100 million mark in domestic grosses by the end of the Fourth of July holiday, but has a long way to go to recoup its $250 million-plus production budget and additional marketing costs.

``Any time a movie joins that elite club of $100 million in the first week, you have to be really proud of it,'' said Dan Fellman, Warner's president of domestic distribution.

The audience for ``Superman'' was 57 percent male and 43 percent female. No doubt many of the female moviegoers were taking in ``Prada,'' the fashion-world comedy with Streep as a tyrannical magazine editor.

The 20th Century Fox release far exceeded industry expectations in what turned out to be a wildly successful counter-programming move.

``You would have never expected a number like this,'' said an elated Bruce Snyder, Fox's president of distribution. ``This is better than tracking suggested and clearly ended up being an alternative to `Superman.'''

``Prada,'' also starring Anne Hathaway and Stanley Tucci, drew an audience that was 79 percent female on its opening night.

greg.hernandez(at)dailynews.com

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TOP 10 MOVIES

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released today.

1. ``Superman Returns,''

$52.15 million.

2. ``The Devil Wears Prada,'' $27 million.

3. ``Click,'' $19.4 million.

4. ``Cars,'' $14 million.

5. ``Nacho Libre,'' $6.2 million.

6. ``The Lake House,''

$4.5 million.

7. ``The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,'' $4.4 million.

8. ``Waist Deep,'' $3.3 million.

9. ``The Break-Up,''

$2.8 million.

10. ``The Da Vinci Code,''

$2.3 million.

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TOP 10 MOVIES (see text)